Former U.S. Treasurer advocates for guns on campus, criticizes TCU administration

Former U.S. Treasurer Bay Buchanan advocated Wednesday night for allowing guns on campus and criticized the university's apparent pushback on promoting Second Amendment rights for the event.

“I would absolutely have guns on campus,” Buchanan said. “College campuses, they’ve become a soft zone. You want to eliminate soft zones. You don’t want to announce to the criminals or to the people who are not stable, who would do something violent like this, that here are the soft zones.”

The university does not currently allow guns on campus and students who are licensed gun owners can store their guns at a vault at the university police station.

The Young Americans for Freedom, a campus group that advocates conservative causes, invited Buchanan, who served during the Ronald Reagan Administration, to TCU.

YAF president Kathleen D’Urso said the university chose not to promote the event’s “Fully Loaded” flyer on social media, which featured pictures of Buchanan and Reagan and an antique shotgun. YAF also requested approval of three raffle prizes: A free concealed handgun training class for anyone 21 and up, one for anyone 18 and up and a skeet shoot outing. Brown-Lupton University Officials rejected all three ideas. D’Urso said the university suggested a paintball outing as a raffle prize instead.

Buchanan questioned TCU officials.

“I was astounded they took the position they did,” Buchanan said after her speech. “Not to allow them to do a raffle, where somebody would learn to use a gun safely and maybe how to proceed with a license? I think it showed some lack of courage on the part of the administration.”

Topics from the speech also included an overview of nationwide gun debate, with Buchanan quickly slamming strong supporters of gun control.

“It’s not even a close call,” Buchanan said. “[The gun control argument] is completely false. They don’t use any numbers that suggest anything based on fact. As a result, they’ve lost the argument.”

“It will do absolutely nothing to reduce crime in this country,” Buchanan said. “The evidence is that when more and more Americans become gun owners, the crime drops dramatically.”

D’Urso said the purpose of YAF bringing Buchanan to campus – and the point of the topic chosen – wasn’t as much forcing a particular idea as it was promoting discussion.

“Having at least an open mind about guns on campus is definitely needed,” D’Urso said. “I think maybe for TCU it wouldn’t be right, because of our large party scene, but I still think it’s something that needs to talked about.”

Editor's note: This story was updated at 9:27 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 10 to include the university's policy on firearms.